In his September 3, 2016 Eleison Comments (#477), Bishop Williamson gives a long quote which he asserts to be Our Lord’s words, but he did not identify where he got the quote. Here is an excerpt from this long quote (with emphasis added to show the four parts which we discuss below):

The human eye cannot stare at the sun, whereas it has no difficulty in gazing upon the moon. The spiritual eye of the human soul cannot behold the perfection of God as it is in itself, but it can look upon the perfection of Mary. Mary is like the moon with regard to the sun. By its light she is lit up, and that light is what she reflects upon yourselves, but she softens that light in a kind of spiritual mist by which it becomes bearable to behold for your limited nature. That is why for centuries it is her that I have been putting forward as a model for all of you that I wish to have as brothers, precisely as children of Mary, like myself. ...

And then she is for ever [sic] your Mother. And she has all forms of the Mother’s kindness, making excuses and interceding for you and patiently leading you on. Great is Mary’s joy when she can say to a soul that loves her, “Love my Son.” Great is my own joy when I can say to a soul that loves me, “Love my Mother.” And greatest of all is our double joy when we see either a soul at my feet leaving me to go to my Mother, or one of you held in my Mother’s arms leaving her to come to me. Because the Mother is jubilant when she can give to her Son more souls enamored of her, and the Son is jubilant when he sees more souls loving his Mother. For when it comes to our glory neither of us seeks to overcome the other, the glory of each of us being complete in the glory of the other.

Bishop Williamson does not tell the reader that the quote is from Maria Valtorta, the false visionary whose “visions” were condemned before Vatican II by the Holy Office under the great anti-liberal Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, who is best known for his opposition to the new mass. (Further analysis of Maria Valtorta’s sensual, heretical and smutty work.)

By hiding the fact that this is a Valtorta quote, Bishop Williamson tries to deceive you in the same manner in which someone might try to deceive unwary Catholics with a Martin Luther quote by not revealing that it comes from him.

The Valtorta quote (above) has four errors:

1. It has the supposed “Lord” saying “He” is glad when people leave “Him” to go to “His” mother. That is not Catholic Marian devotion!
2. It treats Christ’s glory as comparable to His Mother’s glory, whereas His Glory is infinite and entirely incommensurable to the glory of any creature, including His Mother;
3. The reference to Our Lady causing a “mist” is an assertion that Our Lady makes it difficult to understand Our Lord; and
4. It treats devotion to Our Lady as relatively new (only “centuries” old, as the Protestants also assert) and therefore implying that this devotion is not 20 centuries old and going back to the beginning of the Church. This also implies that devotion to Our Lady is not a genuine teaching of the Catholic Church (as explained below).

1. It is false that Our Lord would ever want anyone to leave Him for any reason.

The (false) Valtorta vision has the supposed “Lord” saying:

[G]reatest of all is our double joy when we see either a soul at my feet leaving me to go to my Mother ...

(Emphasis added.)

This statement is wrong for two reasons:

1. Any Catholic with even the most basic understanding of the spiritual life knows that the truth is the opposite. Our (real) Lord seeks to draw us to Himself. As He told us: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself. St. John, 12:32.

   So Our (real) Lord would never have joy because someone left Him to go anywhere, for any reason.

2. Going to Our Lady is not leaving Our Lord! Valtorta’s false “Lord” is not describing true Catholic Marian devotion but rather the common Protestants’ caricature of devotion to Mary.
   1. Protestants agree with Valtorta’s principle that devotion to Mary causes a person to leave Christ.¹ But from this false principle, the Protestants and Valtorta draw opposite conclusions.² The Protestants conclude we should not have devotion to Mary. Valtorta draws the opposite conclusion: her (false) “Lord” says it is a good to be devoted to Our Lady because the (supposed) “Lord” has joy when people leave “Him” to go to her.

   2. True Catholic Marian devotion never, ever causes us to leave Christ, as Valtorta wrongly asserts. Rather, Marian devotion is the surest and shortest path to get to Christ. True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis Marie, part I, ¶55.

      Pope St. Pius X teaches the same true Marian devotion by declaring that Our Lady is the Neck of the Mystical Body of Christ because she is the way for Catholics (who are members of this Mystical Body) to go to the Head of the Mystical Body, Who is Christ.³ Thus, we must never leave Christ but must take the surest and shortest path to Christ: viz., Our Lady.

2. Valtorta falsely portrays Christ’s infinite glory as finite and completed by a creature.

Valtorta’s false vision has the supposed “Lord” saying (about “His” glory and “His” mother’s):

[W]hen it comes to our glory neither of us seeks to overcome the other, the glory of each of us being complete in the glory of the other ....

This is false! Our Lord Jesus Christ is God. His glory is and has always been infinite and complete. St. John 1:14. Creatures do not add anything to Him or to His glory. If we take Our Lady’s glory as greater than all other creatures combined, her glory is nonetheless finite and cannot be compared to her Divine Son’s glory because the infinite cannot be measured by the finite and is not commensurate with it or completed by it.

3. Valtorta falsely portrays Our Lady as making a “mist” which makes it difficult to understand Our Lord.

Valtorta says that Our Lady creates a spiritual mist through which we see Our Lord. Leaving aside the literal definitions of “mist” (which refer to water droplets), the first metaphorical definition is something that makes understanding difficult. So Valtorta has the false “Lord” saying that Our Lady makes it difficult to understand the “Lord”.

This is false and is the opposite of the truth! True Catholic Marian devotion teaches that Our Lady is the surest and shortest path to understanding and imitating her Son. True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis Marie, part IV, ¶165.⁴

4. Valtorta falsely portrays devotion to Our Lady as relatively new (only “centuries” old) and therefore (impliedly) not from the beginning of the Church 20 centuries ago.

Valtorta’s supposed “Lord” says that “He” gave us “His Mother” as a model “for centuries”. The truth is that the real Lord gave His real Mother to us as a model for the last two thousand years. In this way, Valtorta supports the Protestant error that devotion to Our Lady was a “new” teaching not present in the early Church.

Our (real) Lord gave us Mary as our model and as our Mother, beginning while He was on earth. For example:

• He gave us His Mother to be our Mother, when He was dying on the Cross. St. John, 19:27.
• He told us her true perfection and value as a model was because, better than anyone else, she was a model of how to hear the Word of God and keep it. St. Luke, 11:28.

The apostles and early Fathers of the Church showed us and instructed us how to be devoted to Our Lady. St. Luke painted her portrait. St. John tenderly cared for her. The Fathers all fostered great devotion to Our Lady beginning at the earliest times of the Church. See, e.g., St. Germanus’ sermon for the Feast of the Assumption, concerning the devotion of the apostles for Our Lady; see also, all of the praise and devotion of the early Fathers quoted in The Glories of Mary, by St. Alphonsus de Liguori, London, 1852 edition, p.232 et seq.

Beginning with Our Lord’s own words and example, continuing with his apostles and their successors, the Church has been giving us the example of great devotion to Our Lady for almost 20 centuries. Valtorta’s (false) “Lord” minimizes the truth that the real Lord has been instilling in us devotion to His Mother for almost 20 centuries (since His Life on earth).

In fact, any teaching would not be genuine and Catholic if it did not come from Christ and His apostles, handed down through their successors. See this article showing that doctrines not handed down and taught during the whole history of the Church (but which have merely been taught “for centuries”) are heresies and are not Catholic teaching (such as is genuine devotion to Our Lady).

Plainly, this Valtorta quote (given above) shows once again why the Church condemned this false visionary’s writings.

Bishop Williamson Cavalierly Disregards the Church’s Condemnation of Valtorta.

The Catholic Church wisely maintained an Index of Forbidden Books, listing evil books which Catholics were not permitted to read.

The Church must prohibit bad books because our fallen human nature overconfidently presumes we can read any poisonous book, see the errors, and not be harmed by them.

Bishop Williamson’s folly is a perfect example of why the Catholic Church forbade the reading of bad books such as this one. In May 2016, Bishop Williamson excused his own reading of Valtorta’s (condemned) so-called Poem of the Man-God, as follows:

The Poem of the Man-God runs into tremendous opposition. I think it’s the devil, quite honestly. And I think the devil was in the Holy Office at that point in time. It says that the story is romanced, that’s one thing that the Holy Office says. I don’t find that the case.

(emphasis added)

The great anti-liberal Cardinal Ottaviani’s Holy Office condemned Valtorta’s false “visions”. Bishop Williamson places his personal judgment above the Church’s judgment and simply disagrees (i.e., I don’t find that the case.).

Bishop Williamson’s infatuation with Valtorta shows us the wisdom of the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books, because it is so easy to be led astray, as Bishop Williamson has been led astray.

Such folly shows the wisdom of St. Pius X, who tried to warn rashly self-confident souls by condemning the following liberal proposition:

They are free from blame who treat lightly the condemnations passed by the Sacred Congregation of the Index or by the Roman Congregations.

Condemned proposition No. 8, Lamentabili Sane, Pope St. Pius X, 1907.

Bishop Williamson drinks Valtorta’s poison, oblivious to his peril. Let us pray for him. He has done much good in the past and could still do much good in the future.

Let us also pray for Bishop Williamson’s followers, who are deserters from the army of Christ the King by their silence and approval of Bishop Williamson’s liberal words and writings. They don’t realize how much they harm souls.